First up, Happy New Year! Here in South Africa, 2018 has kicked off with a heatwave, making fruit salad and ice cream count as a meal. So it's apt to start the embroidery year with two new fruit patterns - a strawberry and a peach.

The idea came about towards the end of last year, though, when I started making fruit smoothies using big yellow cling peaches. After cutting up so many peaches, it was only natural to want to embroider one! A strawberry came next, and there are three more fruits in the works.